The web site learnenglishkids is a site from the British Council who have worked with language and cultural relations for some 80 years, so it´s a trusted source and a well built web site packed with different language learning on-line tools. The site is made for three categories, kids, teachers and parents. The kids part of the site is for kids up to twelve years. I would say that it works best for kids age 9-12. But younger and older learners (I had fun trying it) can also use it.

The web site is, as it sounds, a site on the internet so in order to use it you will need a computer, an Ipad or a smartphone and an internet connection. The site is free and you can use it with or without becoming a member. Of course if you become a member, which is free, you will also be able to download more information and material.

What´s on it then? Well, it´s divided into the following areas: games, listen & watch, read & write, make, speak & spell and grammar. It also has a part called little kids which is for very small children. In the games part you will find lots of fun and cool games where you, for example, learn words and practice spelling. In listen & watch there are songs and stories that you can listen to. You can also download and print lyrics and texts as well as exercises that follows every story. In read & write you can communicate with other kids that uses the site by making comments on excercises or songs, like a blog. Make is a part where you can make stories or draw pictures. Here you can download material that you want to use or that you have made. Speak & spell is, as it sounds, a part where you practice speaking english, like pronounciation and spelling easy or tricky words. The grammar part I find the most interesting because I haven´t seen anything like it before. Grammar is mostly something you don´t teach kids in early years, unfortunately. But this site makes it easy and fun. They have grammar quizzes, grammar videos, grammar games and grammar tests.

Here are three more specific examples on what you can do on the site: Let the pupils listen to a story or watch a video. Either by themselves, in groups or the whole class. Then let them play the games that comes with the story, for example a wordsearch. Then they can continue with answering questions on the story to practice their understanding. After that they can work with a worksheet that you can download. Finally they can read the story from the text that you can download. Let the pupils practice spelling and how to pronounce words with Speak & spell-tricky words. First they listen to the words and look on pictures representing the words. Then they practice to pronounce the words by saying after a voice. After that they get some pictures but only one word which they listen to and then point to the right picture. Finally they listen to the word and try to spell it right. When practicing grammar you can let the pupils first watch a video explaining a grammar rule, then play a grammar game and do a grammar quizz on the same rule and finishing by doing a grammar test. It´s fun and they will learn grammar.

Of course there are more to this web site than I can fit into this blog post but I recommend you to try this useful ICT-resource and it also has a part for parents and teachers. In the teachers part you will be informed on how to use this site as a teacher and in the parents part you get a whole lot of good information on kids learning english. I can really recommend that part.

You can use this web site as a complement to your ordinary english learning material, but for the younger learners this ICT-resource could easily be their only english learning material at school. If all students can go on-line at home they can also practice english by their own or with a little help from their parents, or you can use it as a homework.

www.learnenglishkids.britishcouncil.org

ICT resource: WordRead Plus

Hello!

Before doing this blog post I have considered for a while what resource I would write about. After narrowing the options down to two, I decided to write about a resource called WordRead Plus. Then what is WordRead Plus, it´s a speech synthesis program with some extra features.

First and foremost WordRead Plus is a speech synthesis program that can be used in several different forms. To name a few examples of the speech synthesis functions the program can be used to read from a website or a document. This can help the reader with pronunciation and to read a whole text with words that the reader have heard but never read. The program can also be on during the time when the writer writes a document. When used in this form the program constantly read each word for the writer, which can support the writer to connect the written word with it´s pronunciation.

Other features that the program has are for example the ScreenRuler. In this feature the user can make three different settings to help the user read from the computer screen.  The first setting is that a ruler will appear on the screen that can highlight a specific part of the screen. The user can make his or hers own settings on colour, size of the ruler and transparency. The second setting is an underline that will appear on the screen. In the settings the user can change colour, size and transparency of the underline. The last setting is similar to the ClaroView, so the description of this feature will be described below.

The last feature that I will talk about in the WordRead Plus program is ClaroView. With this feature the user can easily change colour and brightness on the screen. So instead of just having a white and bright screen to read from, the user can use ClaroView to change the settings of the colour and brightness after his or her liking. Which in turn can aid the reader.

When I decided to make my Blog Post about WordRead Plus I struggled to find reasons on how the resource could and can be used by teachers. The more I thought about the use of the program for the teacher, the more reasons I found why the program is useful for the pupils. And this is probably the real answer why I think that a teacher can and should use an ICT resource in the education.

Two important reasons that I found on why the teacher should use this resource, is that the school shall be both including and individualised. With this program the teacher can include students that have harder to read in the classroom. For an example: if the class is working on a project and is searching for information about a specific object, all of the students (more or less) are reading information to contribute to the project. If there are one or several students that may have some problems with reading, this program can be of assistant to the teacher. How you ask? Well if the problem is reading, reading new words etc. the reader can use this program to assist the reader with the reading. The program can read the whole Internet page, while the pupil follows the sentences. Another way the student can use the program is to mark the word that the reader can´t read and let the program read that word. By doing this the reader will learn how to pronounce new words.

In the same way the teacher can use WordRead Plus to individualise the lessons when the students shall read or write. I have above written about how the teacher can use the program when pupils shall read, therefore in this paragraph I shall only discuss how the program can be used when pupils shall write.

Even if the writer don´t know how to spell every word right, the program can assist the writer in a whole different way than for example Microsoft Words spell feature. Instead of just having the program autocorrect the spelling, WordRead Plus can help the writer to connect the spelling with the pronunciation. This by trying to spell a word that the writer can´t spell and then let the program read the word out loud and try to think what in the written word that makes the pronunciation correct/incorrect. This is a time consuming and a quite advanced exercise. Otherwise the pupil can just use the program to read the word out loud to get feedback on how the written words sounds.

I, myself, think it´s pretty difficult to read a longer text from the screen of my computer. A way to aid the reader when reading longer texts is the use the ScreenRuler. By using this program the reader constantly will have a mark where he or she is in the text, no matter what setting the user uses.

I thought about ending this blog post with a Youtube video, but I haven´t found a video in English nor did I find a video that displayed several features of the program. Therefore I will end this blog post with a bye and a thank you.

/Andreas Johansson

Puppet Pals

Puppet Pals is an app where students have the opportunity to create their own stories and animation. Many children (and adults for that matter) may find it hard to be in a movie themselves or to stand in front of the class and present their work, but with Puppet Pals this might feel easier. In this app, anything can happen - you can be a space monster on Mars, a prince/princess in a far away country, a pirate on the seven seas, and much more. The sky is the limit!

 

There are two versions of Puppet Pals: a free version and the Director's Cut. In the free version you get a few characters and backgrounds. I recommend buying the Director's Cut where you get many different characters and a lot more backgrounds. You also get the opportunity to take your own pictures that you can use when making your story/animation.

 

When we were working with this app the students were divided into smaller groups. The task was to first write a story together with a focus on having a cohesive storyline framed by a beginning, middle, and an end. When the students were finished writing the story they were to plan and organize a presentation of their work by making a movie in Puppet Pals.

 

What abilities are we training? If we read the syllabus for English the students should be able to communicate both orally and in writing, and they should be able to understand and interpret the content of spoken English. We also get into other subjects such as art, where students should be able to communicate with images to express different messages as well as be able to create images with digital techniques.

 

The above mentioned work with Puppet Pals was implemented during a lesson in Swedish, but you can of course do a similar task while teaching English. With good use of your imagination you can do anything you want to do!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYUx7QVXXX4

iMovie - language learning through moviemaking!

By this post, I would like to show how we can teach English language via the app iMovie, which I find is a very good app.

 

So, what is iMovie? iMovie is an app from Mac. So if you do have an Ipad or Mac computer, you can use it, and it´s free to download. Thru this app, you can make your own movies, by taken pictures on your Ipad or camera. You can use snapshots or short films that you allready have made, or take them during the time that you work with the movie. It is an easy app to work with, I already do use it together with young children, 6years old and the older ones does also like it very much. In the app you can do a lot of effects, you can choose the overall look of your movie, with different formats and you can choose to have a background music while your movie is playing. There are some for performed movies which you can choose to just put your own pictures into, or you can make your own from start. When you have choosen those things, you can start to work with your pictures. While making the movie you can make more effects, on each picture. You can write sentences, make voiceeffects like applauses or fireworks or even record your own voice in! And it´s easy for children to do this by themselfes, they found it very enjoyable! Try it out!

 

 



iMovie

 

Now, how can we use this app as a tool for teach language in school? Because the children of today are used to work with pictures and movies at home and among firends, I think it is a popular method to use in lessons. It´s a hugh benefit to make pupils work in pairs, it make them interact, communicate and reflect over the language with each other. One way to use it could be to get them to work with a subject, like dogs. Here they can find pictures from Internet, books or reality, take pictures of those, find facts, write and record them down. They can also do an interview of each others, take snapshots of each others doing things they like and write it in the pictures. They then can record their voices down (in English of course) where they talk about their friend, facts about him/her, what he/she likes and so on. When the movie are finished they can presentate it for the whole class and get supplementaries from the teacher or the other pupils.

It is also a good tool of documentation for you as a teacher, to use for pupils to see their own learning over a period of time, or to present for parents in appraisals.

 

I will here link to a youtube clip where you can see and hear a start of how you use the app. Good look!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZKjsF_bzKs

/Josefin Ehnebom

DVD player

The first thing that comes to mind when I think about technology in school is a video I saw myself in school. Since I went to school during the 90’s computers and other technology was rather new in the classroom, but I clearly remember the video “En cellsam historia”.  It’s a video about how the human body works, from the smallest cells to the biggest muscles. Even though this was used in our natural science education, I come to think about that videos, or more likely today DVD, is a very good tool to use when teaching English. And it’s a rather cheep kind of technology, though all you really need is a TV and a DVD player. Thanks to the technique today with DVD, the teachers are able to choose what subtitles should be used for example. Or if there should be any subtitles at all when the students watch a DVD. This is something Dudeney and Hockly (2007) writes about in their book.

Kids today are often very familiar with the English language through movies, TV and video games. There for, I think DVD’s and short movies is a very good tool to use to get the kids interested. Since most students already are familiar with this type of technology, it’s something they could use by themselves as well and not have to depend on the teacher helping them. Dudeney and Hockly (2007) writes about the importance of always having an idea behind it as a teacher, whatever type of technology you’re using. Usually you use DVD and movies as a treat maybe on Friday after noons, but instead I think it’s a very good opportunity to get natural English education, though this is something most students are use to from home. Besides not using subtitles I think it’s important to make the students really listen and after the video has ended maybe retell the story to a friend (in English of course). This helps the teacher see how much and what the students actually have understood about the video/DVD.  One could also use short sections of the movie and make students reenact the scenes from it. Using this type of material and method is also something that is present in the English syllabus (Lgr 11).

And of course there’re many educational DVD’s out there for pretty much every subject in school. For example the one I mentioned above, but you can find educational DVD’s for many other subjects. Skolverket have material for teachers on DVD that covers everything to how to handle student’s sexuality, to history based movies.    

SLI.SE

At my school we use SLI.se as a resource when we use ICT in our classes. SLI.se is a website that is provided by AV-media Kronoberg. SLI.se is a media catalog there you can find material for primary school up to upper secondary school. They provides about 17,000 streaming movies, television and radio programs from UR in many different languages and subjects such as: media and film, technology, mathematics, didactic issues, language, society and health.

You can also use all SLI's streamed media files on your smart phone or tablet by using the app SLI Play. The app is developed for smart phones but can work on your tablet. You will find the app for android at Google Play and the app for Iphone/Ipad at Apple app store.

If you are a student at Linnaeus University (LNU) in Växjö, you can take advantage of SLI's media catalog by register at SLI:SE.

Camera

Camera

I like to take photographs, even tough I not that good at it. I think it’s a great opportunity to show others how the world looks like in my eyes. So, the resource I like to promote is the camera, in order to give students the same opportunity.

I often work as a sub teacher in a school nearby and when I do I try to let the students use the camera as much as possible. The camera in “my” school is a regular digital camera, very simple to use. All that is needed to make it work is to make sure the battery is loaded. After that, just fire away. Since it’s a digital camera it’s very easy thing to do to erase bad photos, if there are any.

(Picture borrowed from google.se)

For teachers the camera is a perfect thing to use in portfolio. Some information can sometimes be hard to explain in words and a photo can either replace words or complement them. It can also be used to show other people (for example parents) what’s going on in school.

The camera is also a good thing to use in the classroom, and outside the classroom also off course. For example, when the students are working with researching things that are in our vicinity, they can take their own photographs instead of copying online. Another good area for using the camera is when practising oral presentations. One idea is to let the students work in pairs and one takes photos of the one speaking and then vice versa. The idea with that is to let the student to se their own body language.

One important thing using the camera is that old photos have to be removed from the camera so that they don’t show up in wrong hands. It is also important that all students feel okay with being photographs. After all, it’s supposed to be both learning AND fun.